Posted
by
timothy
on Thursday September 26, 2013 @12:15PM
from the dub-thee-sir-buzzalot dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Former US President Bill Clinton, through the Clinton Global Initiative, has awarded $1 million to a group of Canadian MBA students who are looking to solve urban hunger by feeding people insects. The students will use this as seed money for their start-up, Aspire Food Group, which aims to farm, produce, and sell edible insects as a way of solving world hunger, particularly in slums. Aspire says it will even work toward replacing livestock farms with insect farms in some areas." Insects as food aren't necessarily incompatible with conventional livestock, either.

The general tendency, somewhat magnified recently, of government to tell us that for our own good (obesity, for the good of the planet, whatever is the issue of the day) we must modify our behavior, when our leaders have no intention of following suit [capitolcommentary.com]. [1] The thought process appears to be, we should ride bicycles so there's plenty of gas for our leaders' armored SUVs. We should eat grasshoppers so there's plenty of steak for our leaders. And we should all reduce our energy consumption so our leaders ca

I want to know how many edible insect farmers we're getting for the million dollars. If the final cost per pound is higher than for a cow steak, why bother?

I guess this does help with AGW, doesn't it? Lower carbon footprint for the dominant species on the planet. But why limit it to insect farmers? Why not eat politicians (once they've been suitably marinated in a politician tenderizer and maybe cubed)? Lawyers. Yes. Lawyers, but they'd have to be ground to be digestible.

Doubtful. I'd go vegetarian before I ever considered eating insects, and I'm sure many others would as well. Some things are just so culturally repellant that they won't be accepted as an alternative except in extreme cases.

Well, he *said* he was a dedicated vegan, but later admitted he still eats eggs and fish [aarp.org], (reference buried in the middle of page 3) making him a pescetarian [wikipedia.org]. As a pescatarian myself, (I have sushi once a week and an omlett once a week) I feel it would be dishonest to call myself a "dedicated vegan", even though I haven't eaten animal flesh (exception: fish) since the 1970's. (On the other hand, I don't make a living in politics.) It's like being a little bit pregnant, or having quit smoking, except for

You're right; having an unhealthy diet (or not) is an entirely separate issue from what kind of an eater you are. Someone who subsists entirely on raman noodles could be considered vegetarian, I guess, but it wouldn't be very healthy.

The thing that bothers me the most about it is that insects look like they contain a lot more gut and chitin, and a lot less meaty morsels compared to the other multi-limbed critters we eat regularly.

They do. That's one of the reasons I've never eaten insects, despite having been in parts of the world where they are a part of the normal diet. And that's also something we don't consider in the western world: spiders are considered a delicacy in Thailand. Anything being discussed here is stuff that's already been proven healthy/safe to eat, just that it's kind of squick for people used to a different diet.

Larger insects do have more meat, though, and stuff like grasshoppers/locusts are more meaty to begin

Personally, I've no problem with it, particularly if insect derived food were processed. For example, it could be presented in the form of burger. Having said that, I'd probably get used to seeing insect shaped food. Particularly if it were cheap and nutritious and tasty. I'm certainly willing to give it a go. Maybe one day we'll all be telling our grandchildren, to their horror, that we used to eat things that looked recognisably like the leg of an animal.

Human teeth show every sign of being shaped, at least in part, to consume insects, and we possibly developed long fingers to dig them out of hiding places, too. I'm not religious, but sometimes I can't help but think of a monkey-like God looking down on all of mankind's problems with famine and hunger and yelling, "For My sake, mankind, I gave you the cockroach! An unlimited food source - you can't wipe the little bastards out if you try!"

Even though insects are indeed edible and can be quite good (try them roasted or chocolate covered), TFA talks about using this product as a cheap replacement for animal feed for both livestock and fish farms. Currently livestock is fed reprocessed livestock leftovers which causes several problems. One, it's expensive to reprocess this into a healthy mix two, it's not very efficient. If you do it wrong (which is the case in a lot of 3rd world countries), you could help spread stuff like Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease or FMD among your livestock. Additionally (if you're into that) the current processes are not organic so organic products cannot process their own waste.

According to the article, the larvae of these insects eat 90% of whatever you give them, once they're fat, you throw them in an oven and they become toasty bits to feed.

check out black soldier flies [blacksoldierflyblog.com]. they can be farmed in nifty little bins by pretty much anyone. the larvae will eat damn near anything (plant/animal based food waste and excrement) and leave behind nothing but fertilizer and fat larvae, which make nutritious feed for aquaponic setups or chickens. the adults live only a couple days; they exist only to mate, and do not bite or sting. they are not known to be a vector for any human pathogens, and they generally buzz off to die once they're done mating.

think of a monkey-like God looking down on all of mankind's problems with famine and hunger and yelling, "For My sake, mankind, I gave you the cockroach! An unlimited food source - you can't wipe the little bastards out if you try!"

I think God might have underestimated mans (and Monsanto's) ability to fuck up a perfectly good source of food...

There's been a lot of this going around lately. From whence came the insect-eating meme? There's a woman I see in a coffee shop sometimes. She's an environmental activist, best known to me for manning the anti-GMO petition campaign in California, which failed. She mentioned eating insects that last time I saw her. I was like, OK... there's a meme going around, since environmental activists often rub shoulders with the same elite circles in which Clinton is involved.

The $64 trillion question is, "Can anybody trace the origin of the meme?". Yeah, people have been eating insects for thousands of years, and there have probably been much earlier suggestions that Westerners try it. I'm talking about a dramatic recent upswing though. What catalyzed it?

There is a long term trend towards sustainable farming practices. Cows take up vastly more land per lb of protein produced. The trend is to try and move primary protein source towards something more efficient, like sheep or chickens. But you don't get much more efficient than insects.

Trying to change cultural taboos in order to use the most efficient protein source isn't a sign of sustainability. It's a sign of desperation. If that doesn't fix the problem, then where do you go? It'd be better to fix the problems that are making them think that way; rather than think that way.

Hey, googling around insects are the most efficient, with fish, chicken, pigs, and then beef finally being least efficient. How about encouraging Indonesians to take a baby step towards the most efficient source, and trade beef for pork. Do you see why that might be a bit of a problem?

Aside from that, the truly desperate never needed a study from some institute to become efficient. Rats and bugs get eaten by POWs and refugees all the time. The Bible even records that bird droppings became a coveted source of sustenance during a seige. It almost sounds like they're putting the cart before the horse. "You're going to be living in dire poverty because of what we're doing to you; here's how you can cope with it".

The $64 trillion question is, "Can anybody trace the origin of the meme?". Yeah, people have been eating insects for thousands of years, and there have probably been much earlier suggestions that Westerners try it. I'm talking about a dramatic recent upswing though. What catalyzed it?

The recent media attention and resulting zeitgeist came about because of a recent report by the U.N.'s Food and Agricultural Organization, Edible insects: Future prospects for food and feed security. [fao.org] As an issue that ties well into concerns about food security & poverty, animal welfare, greenhouse gas reduction, and openness to food options eaten in other parts of the world, the issue has become a bit of a liberal hot topic.

("Elitist" is a bit unfair, though. Most of the buzz, if you'll pardon the p

Yes. The steer is likely able to understand it has a future and feel pain as you do, and much of everything else we expect of mammals. The grasshopper not at all.

I know you were trying to be funny, but this meat eater thinks you are being quite foolish. There ethical implications to eating meat, the biggest one right now being how terribly those animals are treated.

What we need to do is breed a steer that wants to be eaten, a la Restaurant at the End of the Universe!

And this mostly-vegetarian thinks that the biggest ethical problem with eating meat is that the way animals are currently raised for meat basically has them eating things they aren't really supposed to (e.g. corn to grass-eaters, and cannibalism), which is both bad for the animals and bad for us. The cramped conditions and abuse and such don't help.

The only reason you are severely underestimating the grasshopper is because you anthropomorphize the cows. All living things desire to remain alive, all organisms* feel pain. Killing and causing suffering is part of life. You have to do it in order to live.. or pay someone to do it for you, in which case you are an hypocrite not someone of higher moral**.

* That include plants, which is now know for facts that they communicate, are self aware and feel pain. Nature has many way, the central nervous system is

No, I do not. Cows are not people, nor do I consider them such. I have killed animals, and will likely do so again. I still recognize that a grasshopper knows less about what is going on around him than a cow.

Please show me some information on plants being able to do this. I have never heard of it, and frankly I do not believe it. They may respond to stimuli the way circuits behave but I want evidence for more than that.

Obviously animals are killed via mechanized farming. I did bale hay as a kid you know.

He's turning the larvae loose on some leftover bits of chicken. "The bugs consume this material. Probably 90 percent of the material is consumed, and all that's left is a little bit of bone and sinew and fur."

She said let them eat brioche, which in that situation made sense. French law at the time set the price for normal bread and to prevent bakers from not selling it they were required to sell brioche for that price if they ran out of normal bread.

Compared to cows, pigs and chickens some insects, especially in larva stage can convert plant cellulose and starches into proteins and fats many times more efficiently. This is the real benefit. In some cases this is more efficient than processing the plants for human consumption. Take corn as a feed, it is very inefficient for humans to ingest it but feed it to some insects and they will convert it at a very high rate.

We are not talking about insects being the equivalent to a Shmoo which reproduces asexually and only consumes air, but it makes sense to add them to agriculture. What I do not like is the premise that it could feed the poor, however they may be on to something with this approach also. During the second world war when the Nazis used slave labour from concentration camps they fed the slave on potato peels and vegetable top waste from the soldiers mess kitchens. When the SS doctors suddenly realized that the slaves that were there to be worked to death were actually getting to be healthier than the soldiers the practice was stopped and the slaves were then put on a deliberate starvation diet.

Just maybe our opulent fat diet of animal proteins and refined starches will make the rich who can afford it less healthy than the insect eating peons and lower class workers in the city slums.

They're grinding the bugs into flour and combining it with whatever the local flour is (corn, wheat, whatever), thus fortifying it with iron and protein. And it's gluten-free to boot (if added to already gluten-free flour).

No mention of using 100% insect flour, though.

Will be interesting to see if their "bug-fortified" flour will be less expensive than plain flour.

I don't even think it matters how cheap it is. It won't stop people from starving in third world countries. Even if the food is free, you still have to get it to the impoverished nation, which can cost quite a bit, especially with inland areas. Sure they could cultivate their own land, farm their own bugs, but they could do that with the crops and livestock we currently have. The reason they don't is because their who system is completely messed up. You could have a farm, but someone could come around and burn all your crops, and kill all your livestock because there is no rule of law. Lack of food isn't really a supply or cost issue to do with the food itself, but more a problem with the way the social and political systems are set up where people are starving.

- pour shot of tequila- sprinkle dash of salt on back of hand- hold slice of lime in fingers- pick up shot with right hand while throwing salt over shoulder and simultaneously squeezing lime in left eye- While pain in eye has you distracted, toss insect in mouth and chase with tequila.

Somebody beat you to it and I'm not talking about the film. There is a product called Solent intended to be an inexpensive meal substitute. Apparently it is not too bad, and leaves you feeling full (and gassy.)